Takeshi/Zulu
Takeshi woke up staring at the ceiling. He tried to move, and nothing happened. Just staring at the ceiling. A man who was broken in body but had an iron-hard will from being imprisoned in his own body started to cry out loud. "Why, why, why?" he screamed. No tantrum could be thrown in his quadriplegic body—just the inner turmoil of his mind. "I died! I was in a new body! Why am I stuck here? Just let me die!" he cried again. The taste of movement and pain and freedom from his prison had been too much to lose.
"Takeshi, are you okay?" Two voices cried from the other room, running in. "We were worried sick," both his parents said, seeing he had awakened. He quickly stopped his tantrum, but tears still flowed freely down his face. He had only kept it together all these years for his parents. "You passed out on the deck last night. What happened?" they asked.
Takeshi felt more hot tears flow. The meteor wasn't real. It didn't kill him. Stifling another sob, he said, "I was just tired." The deathly monotony of a typical day started once again. His bed was angled up, allowing him to watch TV throughout the day. There was nothing else. He liked watching cartoons and anime—anything science fiction to help his mind leave his body, at least in his daydreams.
Sitting there watching the 1000-plus episodes of One Piece once again, his vision started to double. His second set of eyes were staring at a ceiling—one of rough-cut rock. He tried to use muscles he hadn't in almost twenty years, trying to raise his body. It started to move.
Sitting up, he stared around at the dozens of beds around him. "This is the same world," he muttered. He moved his arms from side to side and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. A massive grin spread across Zulu's face.
A large banging of a bell echoed through the chamber, and several large men came walking into the dorms. "Everyone at the end of your bed, now!" screamed a monstrous voice that caused the air to quake.
"Congratulations! You passed your entrance exam. Out of our 500 strong applicants, only 39 lived. You have shown outstanding strength of body, spirit, and soul. From now on, you are initiates. If you do well, you can move your way up to outer disciples. How, you may ask? It is simple." The massive instructor gestured toward the chamber entrance. "Posts are marked at multiple points on the path up the volcano. If you reach that post, you move up in position. Be careful—take too many steps when you're not ready, and the waves of power blowing forth from the volcano will crush you."
The instructor's eyes gleamed with sadistic pleasure. "Now, my sweet little initiates, I will assign each of you to an outer disciple you will report to."
Takeshi—no, Zulu—stood with the other survivors, his legs trembling not from fear but from the overwhelming joy of simply being able to stand. Every sensation was a gift: the cold stone beneath his bare feet, the acrid smell of sulfur in the air, even the intimidating presence of the instructors. This was real. This was freedom.
"You," the instructor pointed at Zulu with a meaty finger. "Zulu of the Southwest Wastes. You will report to Outer Disciple Kane. He specializes in pain tolerance training." A cruel smile spread across the man's scarred face. "Perfect match, considering how much you seemed to enjoy our entrance examination."
Zulu nodded eagerly, not caring about the ominous implications. Pain was just another sensation he'd been denied for decades. Bring it on.
As the other initiates received their assignments—some looking terrified, others determined—Zulu flexed his fingers and toes repeatedly, marveling at the simple miracle of voluntary movement. In his Earth body, Takeshi was watching anime with tears still drying on his cheeks. But here, in this volcanic sect of madmen, he was finally, truly alive.
Tim/Lia
Lia adjusted her outer disciple robes as she walked toward the training grounds where the qi refining students were gathered. Tim was getting more confident moving her body around. "Okay, I need to act as two different people. Here I am Lia—prodigy boss bitch who knows her shit." As a Foundation Establishment cultivator, she was now expected to mentor junior disciples—a responsibility that came with her advancement. The irony wasn't lost on Tim that he was currently walking to the gym as Tim to be instructed on basic training techniques, while Lia was walking to teach cultivators several times stronger than himself on Earth.
The training area was a large courtyard at the bottom of the mountain with practice dummies, meditation circles, and sparring rings designed to help qi refining disciples build their foundations. About twenty students, ranging from teenagers to young adults, were already assembled and waiting. Most were at the early stages of qi refining—levels one through three—with a few more advanced students at levels four and five.
"Senior Sister Lia!" Several of the students bowed respectfully as she approached. Tim felt a flutter of nervousness. These kids looked up to her as an expert, but he was still figuring out how to properly control qi flow himself.
"Today we'll be working on basic qi circulation and meridian cleansing," Lia announced, drawing on the fragmented memories and techniques that came naturally to this body. "Remember, forced qi flow leads to meridian damage. Let the energy guide itself along the pathways."
She demonstrated the proper breathing technique, feeling the qi move through her channels with practiced ease. It was strange—while Tim's conscious mind didn't fully understand the process, Lia's body knew exactly what to do. Muscle memory and inherited knowledge took over. Tim's heart was hammering in both bodies. "Fake it till you make it," he thought.
As she moved between students, correcting their postures and offering guidance, Tim marveled at how naturally the teaching came. Lia's reputation as a prodigy wasn't just raw talent—she genuinely understood cultivation theory at an intuitive level. Here he was piggybacking off the countless years of training and just letting the body run on intuition. "Hey, maybe this can be a way I embrace this character as Lia. I'll follow her body's well-trained intuition in most scenarios. This way I can keep her personality separate from melding with Tim's. Think hive mind, hive mind. This isn't Tim teaching now—this is Lia."
"Senior Sister Lia," a girl with twin braids spoke up, "everyone says you broke through to Foundation Establishment at nineteen. Do you have any special techniques?"
Tim felt Lia's body respond with a slight blush. The original Lia had been proud of her achievement, but also secretive about her methods. "Consistent practice and patience," she replied diplomatically. "Don't chase quick breakthroughs. A solid foundation is worth more than rapid advancement." "Urgh," Tim gagged internally at saying such bullshit. From the scrambled memories of Lia coming through his mind, she was diligent, but damn, she had perfect meridians and a dantian—or core—that could contain several times more qi than a normal cultivator. "Hmm, maybe like that fish dude from Naruto."
As the training session continued, Tim found himself genuinely enjoying the teaching role. These young cultivators reminded him of his English students—eager to learn but making the same basic mistakes over and over. The patience he'd developed as a teacher served him well here too. "What are the odds I'd be teaching in both lifetimes? Maybe this will make it easier to adapt. Just these damn tits bouncing when I walk. Shit, I've got to get a bra for these things." Tim chuckled once again at the disparity between his vulgar shit-talking mind and the proper act Lia was putting on. "I guess most ice queen bitches do this too."
"That's enough for today," Lia announced as the sun began to set. "Practice your breathing exercises tonight, but don't overdo it. Cultivation is a marathon, not a sprint."
The students bowed and began filing out, chattering excitedly about their progress. As Tim watched them go, he felt a strange sense of responsibility. These kids were trusting him to guide their development in a world where mistakes could be fatal. "Fuck, if half these kids make it to thirty, it'll be a miracle. The mandatory missions they'll start taking on at level 5 qi refining will kill many. But everyone needs to be tempered into steel at some point." Tim just wondered when he would start to be tempered through life and death trials.